You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give

Hear the fiery words of Steve Jobs: “You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.” In this bold declaration lies the spirit of creation itself. Jobs, visionary of the modern age, speaks as the ancients once did when they warned that the crowd cannot see beyond the present moment. The multitude desires only what it already knows. But the true creator, the leader, the innovator—he must look beyond, into the unseen, into what has not yet been imagined. Desire changes quickly, but vision endures.

The ancients understood this lesson. Had Alexander the Great waited for the voices of the people to command him, he would never have crossed the Hellespont, never stretched the empire of Greece to the edges of the known world. The people feared the risk, longed for safety, clung to the familiar. But Alexander saw beyond. So too did Jobs: while others clung to keyboards and beige machines, he dreamed of glass screens, elegant simplicity, and devices that would reshape the very rhythm of human life. His quote is the law of visionaries—do not follow the desire of the moment, but anticipate the longing of tomorrow.

Consider also the tale of Henry Ford, who once remarked, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” The crowd did not yet conceive of the automobile; their imagination was bound by what they already knew. But Ford gave them what they could not name, and in doing so, changed the world. This is the echo of Jobs’s wisdom. To serve only current demand is to chase shadows; to create from vision is to lead mankind into light.

Jobs’s words also strike as a warning. Those who build only by reaction will forever be late, forever chasing what has already passed. The market shifts, the hearts of people grow restless, the tide of desire ebbs and flows. By the time a creation born of reaction is complete, it is already obsolete. True greatness does not come from answering what people ask today, but from foreseeing what they will yearn for tomorrow. This is why Jobs did not wait for permission to invent the iPhone or the iPod—he created them from the fire of vision, and the world followed in wonder.

Yet this saying is not only for inventors of machines—it is for every soul who longs to create. The writer who waits for readers to demand a story will never finish it. The leader who waits for his people to beg for courage will never rise. The dreamer who waits for the world to approve will never awaken his destiny. Jobs’s words are a summons: do not wait for the crowd, do not follow their fleeting desire—lead them where they cannot yet see.

The lesson is clear: to live as a visionary, you must dwell not in the present alone, but in the unfolding future. Listen to people, yes, but do not let their momentary cravings be your master. Instead, let imagination, courage, and foresight be your guide. Build what they will love tomorrow, even if today they cannot understand it. The wise do not mirror the world—they shape it.

So let Jobs’s words burn in memory: “By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” Do not build only for the moment; build for eternity. Do not fear the laughter of those who do not yet see, for their laughter is but the shadow of tomorrow’s awe. Dare to dream beyond the crowd, dare to labor for what does not yet exist, dare to lead mankind into the future. For in doing so, you will not merely satisfy desire—you will awaken it, transform it, and give it wings.